One of the most entertaining what-if games to play these days is to watch President Obama and imagine if George Bush had done the same thing two years ago. This might be the best example yet: a White House blog post asking citizens to report anyone spreading “fishy” (=critical) information about Obama’s health care plan.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.  These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

We’ve seen for a couple of years now that there is no legitimate criticism of Obama; everything is either racist or dishonest. So we have the White House asking citizens to pass on things they hear in “emails or casual conversation” to an Orwellian email address. And, as Byron York points out this morning, those emails would become White House records not covered by the Privacy Act or the Freedom of Information Act. In other words, they could be the basis for an enemies list that would be “both secret and permanent”.

Go ahead, imagine Bush trying that. How do you think that would have gone for him?